Its high, thick walls, which were built in a circle and fortified by towers, meanwhile helped it withstand invasions by the Romans in AD116 and 198. It eventually fell to the Persian Sasanian dynasty in AD241.

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Hatra was a religious and trading centre of the Parthian Empire

More recently, the site was used in the opening scene of the 1973 horror film, The Exorcist.

In March 2015, Iraqi officials said they had received reports from locals that IS had destroyed Hatra.

The following month, IS itself released a video showing militants using picks, sledgehammers and assault rifles to destroy Hatra's walls and statues.

In November, a month after launching a major operation to drive IS out of Mosul, Iraqi forces recaptured the ancient city of Nimrud. Much of the site was reduced to rubble, with shattered statues and a ziggurat reduced to a fraction of its size.